Gordon Waddell - having his say

[Anchorman 0]

I wouldn't disagree with much of this to be fair.

 

BY GORDON WADDELL

Gordon Waddell: Like Thelma and Louise, Rangers have arrived at their destination.. the edge of a cliff

31 August 2014 08:37 AM By Gordon Waddell

GORDON reckons Rangers are at the edge of a precipice but the cash crisis hasn't stopped the club signing back-up keeper Lee Robinson in a move typical of the way the club has been run for the past few years.

THEY sold their road back to the top of the game as ‘The Journey’.

It would appear Rangers have arrived at a destination many financial experts predicted for them long ago. The edge of a cliff.

As the directors sit there like Thelma and Louise, with the engine revving, you wonder if the question was not whether the club would end up being driven over the edge but more a matter of when the crash would occur.

How else do you explain it?

No sane person would surely run a business the way they’ve run theirs. It’s as if they have committed commercial suicide.

An example? It didn’t make a headline. Barely registered a mention.

But if you want even a tiny indication of exactly how dysfunctional Rangers are, then look no further than the signing of Lee Robinson last week.

A 28-year-old back-up keeper to a 35-year-old back-up. When they already have the Scotland Under-19 No.1 AND the Scotland Under-17 No.1 on their books?

Another wage? Aye, why not, eh? We’ve been splashing money needlessly for two and a half years on players we don’t need and can’t afford – another won’t kill us.

Their share offering on Friday was like taking a tube of Savlon to a cremation.

They’ve admitted to the stock exchange that if they don’t get at least £3m, they’re knackered.

And even if they do, they’ve openly shifted the problem a couple of months further down the line.

Yet still they sign players like autograph hunters? They act as if they don’t give a monkey’s.

Other clubs coming back from the brink, the first thing they attacked was their cost base. Trimmed all the fat and started from the ground up. Live within your means. New club motto? Numquam Iterum. Never Again.

Yet here we are, back at square one. Ally on the back pages, pleading: ‘Don’t sell my stars’.

Why not? Truth is you should never have been allowed to sign most of them in the first place. This whole ‘We’re Rangers and until someone tells me otherwise, we’ll continue to behave like Rangers’ schtick?

McCoist is a bright, articulate, likeable guy. I refuse to believe he’s so gullible. That he never sat there and thought ‘This can’t be right’.

Who would you prefer to be in charge at Rangers?

I’m not saying anything I haven’t said to him in a dozen different press conferences.

I’ve asked him why they weren’t hunkering down, signing players for their level, saving cash.

He always replied: “The fans deserve better.”

Damn right they do. But they also deserve their club to survive after what they’ve put in over the years.

In a football sense, I haven’t yet met a Rangers fan who didn’t think the club would have been better bleeding half a dozen youngsters into their line-up back on day one and developing them properly than going down the road they did.

I haven’t yet met a fan who wouldn’t have put up with the odd defeat to see some genuine progress and fiscal responsibility rather than watching the likes of Richard Foster, Stevie Smith, Ian Black, Dean Shiels or Jon Daly.

Or Lee Robinson. Nice lad, decent gloves – but what about Liam Kelly and Robby McCrorie, two of the highest-rated teenagers in their position in Scotland?

Every other club in the country is giving youth a chance and reaping the rewards.

Not The Rangers. Sorry lads. Can’t trust you, even on the bench. No time to have faith in you.

Other diddy clubs might get away with playing teenagers. They may even excel.

Hell, look at Conor McGrandles – 82 senior games by the age of 18 and a £1million move from Falkirk to Norwich. Rangers are too good for that, though. Listen, the dysfunctional management of the club’s affairs runs a million miles deeper than the team.

These are just examples of how a total breakdown in management manifests itself in public.

What goes on behind closed doors or up marble staircases? We may never know.

But the fact they’re putting out the begging bowl in such a humiliating manner suggests none of it is good.

And then we have the ever-hovering presence of Dave King .

King has been criticised for his silence but don’t let anyone kid you that he hasn’t been waiting for this exact moment.

The lowest ebb. The final wheezing breaths of a regime someone as long in the tooth as he is always thought would arrive.

Sure, he’s a Rangers fan. Sure, his intentions for the club will be more honourable than the current incumbents.

But spare me the idea his timing suggests anything other than his own benefit being served too.

In the meantime, the Rangers fans are once again left with what they call Morton’s Fork – two choices, both undesirable.

Take up the share option, keep a shambolic regime functioning a little longer. Or not a penny more. Flush them out and suffer the consequences. I don’t envy them their decision.

[Waltersgotstyle 307]

Our player wage bill is not the issue but that fact does not suit some journalists agendas.

[Anchorman 0]

Our player wage bill is not the issue but that fact does not suit some journalists agendas.

 

May not be the issue but you can't deny it doesn't help. Does the Lee Robinson signing make any sense to you? If yes, can you share it because I'm struggling to understand it.

[buster. 5,185]

Our player wage bill is not the issue but that fact does not suit some journalists agendas.

 

The constant bleating about journalistic agendas and fairytale conspiracies takes the focus away from where it should have been years ago.

 

It's now way too late and as Waddell says the forks in the road are marked with only varying degrees of more increased pain.

[Waltersgotstyle 307]

Let's me be straight - our wage bill is ridiculous for where we are and there is no doubt the money could have been better spent.

 

But what cannot be ignored is that our turnover to wage ratio is probably one of the best in football.

 

As for agendas - you would be naive to say that Scottish journalists do not love to stick the boot in at any opportunity.

[stewarty 2,025]

Whether he's sticking the boot in or not, I don't disagree with anything he says there.

[buster. 5,185]

The comprehensive and rounded story on our finances would be longer than 'War and Peace' and yes Waddell has decided to concentrate in one area. However I think it has been done effectively and hits home, opposed to a lot of articles that have tried to juggle various balls and failed.

 

Your point regards wage/turnover ratio is relevant in several different directions and could be the centre point of a different article altogether. A continuation of the Waddell piece, if you like.

 

 

Agendas

Obviously there are some who enjoy sticking the boot in, there are others who do it for effect to provoke stooshies and sell copy, there are those who simply report things as they see them and we don't agree.

 

It is also been shown that this angle has been exploited successfully by various sp.ivs to push their own popularity, take the fans attention from sp.iv activity and have us emotionally invest in a 'regime' (especially Green / this means we start to defend a regime from criticism instead of listening to it).

 

Best to concentrate on whatever facts are out there and not get too caught up with the various 'perceived agendas'.

[Rangersitis 0]

Our player wage bill is not the issue but that fact does not suit some journalists agendas.

 

What is Gordon Waddell's agenda?

[der Berliner 3,744]

Hell, look at Conor McGrandles – 82 senior games by the age of 18 and a £1million move from Falkirk to Norwich. Rangers are too good for that, though. Listen, the dysfunctional management of the club’s affairs runs a million miles deeper than the team.

 

Yeah, nice. Dunno how many Conor McGrandles Falkirk had these past few decades, we had one Danny Wilson and a chap called Alan Hutton (+/- 9m). I reckon that we would have cashed in on Telfer had those with brains at the top dealt with his contract better. We might even sell Macleod (our brightest talent) for some serious money too. Not that this would go down well with the support - should it come to pass. I reckon that the Bairns were all very happy to let McGrandle go ... at least the board. ...

 

Just to add a bit of objectivity to that particluar remark.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

Let's me be straight - our wage bill is ridiculous for where we are and there is no doubt the money could have been better spent.

 

But what cannot be ignored is that our turnover to wage ratio is probably one of the best in football.

 

As for agendas - you would be naive to say that Scottish journalists do not love to stick the boot in at any opportunity.

 

having a high turnover to low wage ratio only matters if the club is being run properly. At the moment, we have no money to spend so it doesn't matter how well we're spending it. Due to almost criminal incompetence we are utterly broke again, so I think it's fairly irrelevant how prudently we are spending money we don't have, The fact is that we are vastly overpaying people we don't need with money we don't have.